The Hotel at the Center of My Universe
Pondering the friends and lovers who have visited me in this space
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Part 1
I recommended this hotel to him because it is the nicest one in town. It’s not fancy by any means, which I thought might be an issue for him. There was another hotel, a classier one, in the next town over, half an hour away. But convenience won over elegance.
I had fantasized about it so many times. Bringing a lover to this hotel. Maybe someone I had just met, maybe someone who had just stepped off an airplane. A total stranger.
There was something about this act that made me feel like I could finally break free from the constraints I’ve always put on myself. The person I’ve felt I had to be.
For some reason, it felt like casual sex with a stranger in an unfamiliar place was the only remedy.
I found it ironic that I’d been fantasizing about that for so long when I stood next to him in the elevator as we made our way to the third floor. Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly the fantasy I had planned. I had known this man for quite a while — though in many ways, he was still a stranger to me. And he had just gotten off an airplane. It was the first time we had been in each other’s presence.
And there we were in the elevator, fifteen minutes later. The fantasy was close enough.
We were just going to drop his stuff off. And then…? I don’t know if either of us had planned that far ahead.
Five minutes later, we were sprawled across the bed, right in front of the window that looked out onto the streets of downtown. And I couldn’t have been happier.
I thought my whole life was about to change.
Part 2
The next time I stepped into that elevator, it was four months later and with two different people. We walked right past that room. The room I’d been in with him.
I felt a little stab in my chest at the sight of it. Not a little stab, actually. It hurt very deeply.
When the three of us entered the room a few doors down, I realized the room was almost identical to the other one. Only the closet was in a different place.
That stab hit me again. Right in the heart.
I was grateful for the do-over.
At some point, we stripped out of our clothing. We ended up on the bed.
There were clicks and snaps, not moans and giggles.
The three of us had an entirely different agenda than the one I’d had with my last visitor.
When I left there after our last moment together, I cried. But for a different reason than the time I cried after my first departure from that hotel. A very different reason.
Part 3
I never would have dreamed that I’d be back there so soon. In the elevator again with another person I’d just picked up from the airport.
We started our weekend together in the same room my friends had stayed in. It was warm and familiar. It almost felt like home.
We cuddled by the fire pit on the roof, under the stars. We embraced on the loveseat in the room. We eventually migrated to the bed.
I’ve never made such a mess in a hotel room before. I bled all over the sheets. (By accident, of course.) There were coarse hairs everywhere after I shaved his beard in the shower — even after we tried to clean them all up.
It looked like the scene of a battle, though that couldn’t have been further from the truth. That part came later.
That was the first time I didn’t leave the hotel alone.
Part 4
How did I end up in this elevator again?
I smile at the man standing next to me.
This time, though the room is on the third floor again, it’s right across from the elevator. A single, not a double. Not one of the familiar rooms that looks out onto the downtown streets.
Every time he gives me a hug, there’s a little part of me that thinks of them. The other men. The ones I thought I was in love with.
It all feels so familiar and so foreign.
This is not a room I know. And this man is not my lover.
As we laugh and talk, I keep thinking that just down the hall are two rooms where I took very big chances that could have changed my life, had things worked out.
Or maybe…they did change my life even though things didn’t work out, at all.
Epilogue
This hotel sits right in the middle of town. I have passed and circled it dozens of times over the years. And these past twelve months, I’ve entered and exited those doors more times than I can count.
Each time I leave, I notice the universe has altered again. Whatever I had mapped before is no longer accurate. Landmarks have moved. Stars have shifted.
I’m not sure where I am.
Honestly, I’m not sure where I’m going, either.
I look at that hotel as a point of reference. It’s the only thing that doesn’t move.
I find comfort there. Comfort in the familiar rooms. The familiar beds, chairs, and windows. The hardwood floors and the long, wide sinks. And some of the happier memories.
I also find discomfort there. Every time I enter one of those rooms, I take off a little armor. Maybe for just a moment. Maybe a piece that becomes lost to me forever.
Regardless, I always feel a little bit more exposed when I walk out those doors. A little bit lighter. A little bit heavier.
A little bit lost. A little bit found.
© Yael Wolfe 2022
Yael Wolfe is a writer, photographer, and creator of Howl. You can find more of her work at yaelwolfe.com.
